THE BASIC STRUCTURE OF A JEWISH SERVICE
The daily ritual of prayer begins with morning prayers called Shacharit [ʃaχaˈʁlit] (Hebrew: שַחֲרִית šaḥăriṯ), continues with afternoon prayers called Mincha (Hebrew: מִנחַה, pronounced as /mɪnxə/), and concludes with evening prayers called Maariv (Hebrew: מַעֲרִיב, [maʔăˈʁiv]). Generally speaking, the liturgies of these services do not change from day to day, with the exception of the Sabbath and holidays, when the liturgy shifts to reflect the mood of the day. Orthodox Jews usually pray three times a day, and Jews from other movements do so as well, to a lesser extent. Services are held in synagogues, but because of the obligation to pray in the afternoon, when most people are at work, many people either pray alone or join with other Jews at their workplace for prayer. A service does not have to be held in a special place to be considered a prayer service (although there are some days of the week – Shabbat, Mondays, and Thursdays – when the Torah is read as part of the service, and Torah scrolls are generically only available in a synagogue.
Rather than reviewing the complete liturgy (a task beyond the scope of this brief introduction to the subject), we will focus on a few basic prayers said in every Jewish worship service. The Shema (or Sh'ma Yisrael; Hebrew: שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל; "Hear, [O] Israel") is perhaps the best known. The Shema is found in Deuteronomy 6:4: "Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheynu, Adonai Echad" (Hear O Ysrael, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One). Following the biblical directive to recite it "when you lie down, and when you rise up," the Shema is recited in both the morning and evening prayer service. Note that this is a collective prayer, addressed to the entire Jewish people rather than an individual person. At its core, the Shema is a statement of faith—that the Jewish people believe and accept one God and one God alone.
Franz Rosenzweig, a German Jewish philosopher of the early twentieth century, saw three themes worked out in the prayer service, using the Shema as the cornerstone of this idea. For Rosenzweig, the Shema represents revelation, our belief in a God who can respond to prayer and stands outside of nature and history. The prayer before the Shema contains a theme of creation, and the prayer after the Shema is a prayer of thanksgiving for the redemption from Egyptian slavery. Rosenzweig says these three themes – creation, revelation, and redemption – undergird all of Jewish life. These are not static notions; we experience them at every moment, and we acknowledge this when we recite the Shema. God is continually re-creating the world, God is continually revealing Godself to us, and God is continually redeeming us from the slavery (understood metaphorically) that afflicts us today.
The core of the prayer service is called the Amidah (Hebrew: תפילת העמידה, Tefilat HaAmidah, "The Standing Prayer"), literally "the standing prayer" because we are obligated to stand for it. The Amidah is actually considered the center of the Jewish prayer service, and it consists of nineteen smaller prayers, the bulk of which are petitionary prayers for such things as health, wisdom, and fertile land. On the Sabbath, the Amidah changes: The petitionary prayers are omitted and replaced with a prayer of thanksgiving for Sabbath. Jewish tradition understands that on the Sabbath, the day of human and divine rest, we do not petition God for anything. Perhaps the Amidah is considered so pivotal precisely because, on all days except the Sabbath, it gives us an opportunity to ask God for help. In doing so, we recognize how much of life is out of our control and how small a part of this vast universe we really are when we ask God for help to ensure our well-being.
On the Sabbath another ritual is added to the prayer service: the reading of Torah. (On Mondays and Thursdays the Torah is also read, but the ritual is most moving on the Sabbath.) The Torah comprises the Five Books of Moses written on a scroll. Precise rules govern how to write the scroll; it mus be done by hand, so it takes months – sometimes years – for a scribe (sofer, Heb: "scribe", סופר סת״ם) to finish writing one Torah. On the morning of the Sabbath, a portion of the Torah is chanted with a special melody, which changes from Jewish community to Jewish community. The portion being read, however, is the same in every Jewish community from New York to Buenos Aires to Tel Aviv. A central calendar established in the Talmud details which Torah portion is read each week.
Because Jewish tradition is grounded so firmly in the Torah and its interpretations, the reading of Torah is considered the highlight of the Saturday morning service. We express our love of Torah, and our reverence for God, by reading a portion of God's words to us. Usually, after a reading of Torah, someone gives a sermon based on that week's Torah portion.
HEBREW, THE LANGUAGE OF JEWISH PRAYER
Jewish prayers are generally said in Hebrew. Although worshippers in Reform synagogues do say some of the prayers in the vernacular (that is, English in North America and the UK), as do a lesser number of Conservative and Reconstructionist synagogues, by and large you can always expect a hefty dose of Hebrew in a Jewish prayer service. In American synagogues, many of the people praying do not know Hebrew fluently; still, Judaism considers the Hebrew language a touchstone for Jewish spirituality. Among Jews, Hebrew is called lashon kodesh (Heb.: לָשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶשׁ; lit. "the tongue [of] holiness" or "the Holy Tongue"). Throughout Jewish history, Jews have spoken other languages, such as Yiddish, in their daily lives, but Hebrew has always been the vehicle for communicating with the Divine. Jewish mystics believed that the very shape of the Hebrew letters contain within them secrets for accessing the Holy.
PRAYING IN COMMUNITY
One distinctive aspect of Jewish prayer is the necessity of a quorum to say certain prayers. The chanting of the Torah can only be done with a quorum of ten present. Similarly, the Mourners' Kaddish, a prayer said in memory of those who have died, can only be said in the presence of ten Jewish people. (It must be ten men in the Orthodox Jewish community; it can be ten men and/or women in the other movements of Judaism.) This necessary quorum is called a minyan, although the term is often used to refer to small groups gathered for prayers, regardless of the number.
The minyan is a crucial part of Jewish prayer ritual. If you want to pray Jewishly, you must be part of a community. Imagine that you are a Jewish person who wishes to commemorate the loss of a loved one by saying the traditional Jewish prayer. No matter where you are in the world, you need to find a community of Jews conducting services. The requirement of a minyan is profound precisely because prayer can be such a personal and inward-looking experience. Judaism does not want you to lose yourself in that inwardness. So no matter how important prayer is to you, when you are seeking communion with the Holy One, you must always balance your private prayers with a sense that you are praying in community. There can be no Jewish prayer hermits; prayer – and life – must be done with other people.
THE MECHITZAH AND A BRIEF WORD ABOUT WOMEN AND PRAYER
Orthodox Judaism differs from the Conservative and Reform movements of Judaism in one extremely significant way: the mechitzah (Heb.: מחיצה, partition or division), a partition used in Orthodox synagogues to separate men and women during prayer. There are a number of reasons suggested for this separation. Foremost among these reasons is the contention that a woman's voice is a (sexual) distraction for men during prayer. The mechitzah is also used so that unmarried folk do not feel left out – we relate to God as individuals, not as spouses or partners – and to prevent an atmosphere of socializing.
The actual configuration of the mechitzah (i.e., whether the women sit in back behind a partition, or there is a partition down the middle) differs from synagogue to synagogue. The issue of separating the sexes during prayer has caused much debate within the Jewish world. Movements other than Orthodox do not separate men and women during prayer.
